Writing about railroading in Washington State, including history, photos, news, and commentary on current events.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..

Video – How Fast is Amtrak Fast?

The big difference between freight and passenger rail service is the speed at which they operate. Freight operations are slow, mainly because of the sheer weight of a train hauling a mile’s worth of rail cars. But when the locomotives are getting the equivalent of 350 miles per gallon from their fuel, the speed typically doesn’t matter because the efficiency is so high.

Passenger operations are a different story.

Technically, carriers like Amtrak are supposed to get priority use of railroad tracks, which means that freight trains must pull over and stop until the passenger train has gone by. That doesn’t happen on the West Coast often enough, where the amount of rail is slim and the trains are many. One Amtrak train named the Coast Starlight – which runs between Los Angeles and Seattle – is often nicknamed “The Startlate” because of the delays incurred by freight traffic on the same route.

But how fast is Amtrak fast? As you’ll see from the following short video, when a passenger train gets the chance to run fast, it will out pace just about anything. According to the videographer, the train was running at roughly 50mph. The engine on the front of this train was built by Electromotive Diesel to operate at speeds around 80mph. Pushing 50 through this intersection at Mt Vernon for this engine is a piece of cake.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..